Disinformation: Not Just a Right-Wing Phenomenon
In a recent MSNBC broadcast on October 13, James Carville, a Democratic strategist and former political advisor to President Bill Clinton, accused Donald Trump of jeopardizing the entire Constitution. He cited the Supreme Court and Justice Clarence Thomas as enabling the idea of using the military to round up political enemies. Jen Psaki, a former political advisor to Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, responded to Carville's comments with a smile, saying, "We love the truth telling."
This exchange is representative of a common narrative: the left portraying itself as the staunch defender of truth against right-wing disinformation. However, the left also promotes its own form of disinformation, including the false claim that disinformation is a uniquely right-wing issue.
Carville did not provide further details on his accusation, and Psaki did not question why he singled out Justice Thomas or how the Supreme Court authorized the rounding up of political enemies. It's unclear whether partisan anger influenced Carville’s and Psaki’s judgment or whether they were willing to assert anything, including nightmare scenarios, to protect democracy from Trump.
The Age-Old Practice of Political Deception
Deception in politics is as old as politics itself. Despite changes in regimes, the rise and fall of empires, and shifts in power, human beings remain social and political animals. Individuals need each other's company and cooperation, yet they differ over what is useful, just, and good due to diverse backgrounds, dispositions, abilities, and interests. Throughout all these changes, everyone's reasoning is constantly influenced by passion and prejudice, and even the virtuous can be tempted to distort the facts.
Today, the Internet, digital communications, and social media have facilitated the acquisition and transmission of vast amounts of information. This has greatly increased the quantity and speed of casual errors, self-deceptions, well-meaning half-truths, fraudulently marketed opinions and ideas, and outright lies in political culture.
The Asymmetry of Duplicity in American Politics
Both the right and left in America participate in the rampant duplicity that plagues American politics. However, there is an asymmetry. While both sides blame the other for the decay of public discourse, the left controls the commanding heights of education, mainstream and social media, and government bureaucracy.
The left's false claim that the right has a monopoly on manipulation, deceit, and falsehood is particularly harmful because it is amplified through the left's domination of the nation's communication, elite opinion formation, and rule-making and law-enforcement institutions. This significant advantage in shaping public opinion encourages the left's sense of superiority while blinding progressives to their own intellectual subterfuges and ideological swindles. It also stirs outrage on the right, with conservatives justifying their extreme statements and outrageous claims as playing by the progressives’ rules.
Disinformation: A Two-Way Street
Charlie Warzel, an Atlantic staff writer, recently exemplified the left's tendency to portray disinformation as a specifically right-wing issue. He argued that an unprecedented assault on truth has been building for more than a decade, resulting from a disastrous combination of right-wing extremism and digital technology.
However, Warzel's analysis would have been more accurate if he had acknowledged that the left also uses digital technology to create and maintain an alternate reality. In this reality, the relentless onslaught of systemic racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression compels progressives to abandon basic requirements of evidence and argument in order to rally the faithful and save the nation and the world.
The Need for a Shared Reality
Warzel is rightly concerned that Americans are divided not just by political beliefs but by whether they believe in a shared reality. However, his one-sided analysis inadvertently highlights that the fault for America's fragmentation does not lie solely, or even primarily, with Trump and his supporters.
Yes, the events of January 6, 2021, were disgraceful. Yes, right-wing rhetoric can be ridiculous, ominous, and vile. And yes, right-wing activists also exploit the Internet to stoke grievance and stir up resentment and rage. However, progressives often overlook that Trump and his voters have reasons, accumulated over decades, for distrusting institutions fundamental to the nation’s security, prosperity, and freedom, which are dominated by progressives.
Progressives' Role in the War on Truth
Contrary to the common view on the left that Trump initiated a war on truth, our universities have for at least two generations sought to liberate students from the traditional understanding that the purpose of higher education is to pursue knowledge and cultivate independent minds. Instead, through various intellectual trends, universities have fostered the partisan belief that since moral values are socially constructed, progressive policies must prevail.
Our progressive media and our progressive federal bureaucracy have collaborated to promote progressive national narratives by censoring opinions that challenge the progressive perspective and weaponizing the law against those who oppose progressivism’s hegemony.
Bottom Line
To help halt the splintering of America, progressives need to do more than profess their love of the truth. They must act like they mean it. What do you think about this article? Do you agree or disagree with the points made? Share this with your friends and see what they think. And don't forget, you can sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is delivered every day at 6pm.
